London's Designers Guild

Established in 1970 Designers Guild is one of the foremost international home and lifestyle companies-designing and manufacturing wall coverings, furniture, furnishing fabrics, bed & bath, fragrance and home accessories. With a flagship store in London and offices in London, Paris and Munich. Designers Guild products are sold in over 60 countries worldwide.

I love places with names like Designers Guild, it has both that old world and science fiction feel to it. In this case, it is an out of this world London shop. Designers Guild offers a broad range of luxury furnishing fabrics and wall coverings for both the domestic and contract sectors as well as all kinds of cool stuff for bed and bath and home. In addition to the Designers Guild Collections the company also designs and manufactures under license William Yeoward fabrics and papers, Jasper Conrad fabrics and is the distributor for Ralph Lauren fabrics and paper.

While most of the modern world sits in giant marsh mellows of white walls, ceilings and carpets, it is nice to see that the Designers Guild still makes walls worth looking at, not away from. I like all the stripes and bold colors, as well as the more classic patterns. It's all about the colour. Just looking at all the shades and all the beauty makes you feel more alive.

The Designers Guild is the kind of place where Mrs Bucket(pronounced Boo-kay) would feel right at home, especially among all the Special Collections. Of course, Hyacinth wouldn't actually buy anything-but she would leave the catalog in plain sight on her immaculate coffee table.

Visit the flagship store at The Designers Guild London Showroom 277 Kings Road, London, SW3 5EN, United Kingdom

Changing of The Guard at Buckingham Palace London

There are a handful of things that everyone traveling to London is told-you have to do this-The Changing of The Guard at Buckingham Palace is one of things.

My personal experience of the Changing of the Guard in London was a bit of a let down. It was a gray and overcast April, so it was a bit chilly and the Guard was dressed in their winter coats-which are gray and rather dreary compared to the summer garb of bright reds.

We went and saw the men of horseback, who sat perfectly and still, and it was part of their job was to sit perfectly still. Not too gripping to watch though. Then we went over to the Palace and watched, with a few hundred other people, as the Guard came marching down the street. We watched them march through a pair of very ornate gates at Buckingham Palace and then we waited twenty minutes or so until a nearly identical group of Guardsman marched back out and back down the road. Viola! The Changing of the Guard.

This is one of those London attractions that needs a detailed brochure or an audio guide to tell you what is going on. Ok, Changing of The Guard seems to have a guidebook and lots of other info. There did seem to some yelling of orders of one sort or another, but it was hard to tell what was going on from the crowded street. There is a very nice statue of Queen Victoria here and the Palace itself is very pretty. The mobs of people were not so pretty, but that is one of the side effects of being a world famous event.

Now it is entirely possible that The Changing of The Guard is, in fact, an amazing event and I just missed all the good bits. Or it is possible that watching the Guard march around is the good bit. The Guards are very impressive with their tall hats and long coats. There is so much other great stuff near Buckingham Palace that you don't really miss anything by standing around and watching the Changing of The Guard-tons of old buildings and famous buildings and just stuff that cries out London are on all sides.

From Buckingham Palace you can easily walk to other great London sights including; Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, St James' Palace, 10 Downing Street, The Thames, Trafalgar Square and even Hard Rock Cafe-to name just a few of the great London sights near by.

It was worth doing, if for no other reason than you can say: Oh, The Changing of the Guard, I did that.

Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis

"Chelsea Dagger" is a song by The Fratellis and their second single. It was released on August 28, 2006. It is taken from their debut album Costello Music, which was released in the UK on September 11, 2006. It's supposed to be named after Jon Fratelli's wife Heather, a burlesque dancer whose stage name he borrowed for the song-wikipedia

The Fratellis recently preformed at BBC's T in The Park. Ok, not really about London, but I have had this song in my head the past few days. I love all that stuff in the video as well. Chelsea Dagger is just great song, even if it has been co-opted by a bunch of sports nuts.

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech, that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible-Prof Henry Higgins.

Bernard Woolley: As they say, it's a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Jim Hacker: Oh really, Bernard, must you and Humphrey really always express yourself in this roundabout and pompous way? "More honoured in the breach than the observance"! Must you always distort and destroy the most beautiful language in the world - the language of Shakespeare?
Bernard Woolley: That is Shakespeare, Prime Minister.

William Shakespeare, like Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson is forced upon an unsuspecting and unappreciative youth. When I had to read Romeo and Juleit in high school it was quite simply baffling. Filled with words I had never heard, poems that weren't really poems, prose that didn't seem to be prose, and a teacher telling us How Wonderful Shakespeare was. Over the years I have gained a bit more of an appreciation for the The Bard's works.

I am rather fond of that whole little genre of Shakespeare plays rendered in alternate universes-Richard III was bloody amazing! And Romeo and Juliet as Mob families was a bit of fun as well.

But what about Shakespeare as old Will was meant it to be? Well, head over to Shakespeare's Globe Theater for a feel of the Good Old Days. For example Shakespeare's Globe Theater has the first Thatched Roof in London since the Great Fire. Lots of fresh sunlight for lighting. Some times all male casts are used, just as they were in Shakespeare's day.

There is the Globe Exhibition-which has been refurbished with most exhibits re-presented to improve your journey through the history of Shakespeare and the Globe. Find out about extravagant Elizabethan costumes, Renaissance instruments and how they were used, and the dramatic stories of the first Globe crossing the Thames, and the new Globe being reconstructed on Bankside.

This year the shows at Shakespeare's Globe Theater include the performance of his most searching tragedy, King Lear; his most wild and inventive comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; his most thrilling and savage satire, Timon of Athens, and his invention of a new form, the sit-com, in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

It's a very pretty building which brings back a bit of the good old days. While London is full of real old buildings, Shakespeare's Globe doesn't have it's going to fall over at any moment feel to it. This is another London Attraction that should be on everyone lists of things to see, well, if they like Shakespeare anyway.

Lee Ho Fook's-Werewolves of London

Saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand, walking through the streets of Soho in the rain, he was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's, going to get a big dish of beef chow mein-
Warren Zevon

There are a handful of songs that I will listen to when the come on the radio no matter how many gazillion times I have heard them-Werewolves of London is one of those songs.

So when I went to London the first time, there were a handful of places I just had to see-Stonehenge, Tower Bridge, and Lee Ho Fook-I know Stonehenge isn't in London, but it was still the top of my list.

London's Chinatown is an amazing place, the phone booths with their little pointed roofs, the windows filled with roasted ducks, and the Apothecary with jars filled with who-knows-what. And there was Lee Ho Fook's, great name anyway. I scanned that little menu by the sidewalk, but there was no beef chow mein on it. Maybe it's a special request item.

But the point was not to eat at Lee Ho Fook's in London, any more than it is necessary to walk across Tower Bridge-just to see it and photograph it and be able to tell your friends-yeah, there really is a Lee Ho Fook in London.

I've been to Mystic, Connecticut as well as London, England. There really is a Mystic Pizza there, and it is a cool little restaurant, with a lot of neon and stuff hanging off the walls- just like in the movie Mystic Pizza. But it is just a pizza joint, albeit one with photos of famous people eating the pizza. So I didn't eat at Lee Ho Fook's, but I did walk by and have a look at it.

Somewhere nearby Lee Ho Fook there was a very pretty Chinese girl in a very elaborate and colorful costume, she was asking a pound to have her picture taken. So I gave her a pound and The Wife took a photo of me and this lovely girl, then I took a photo of the Wife and this lovely girl. The sad bit is that I only had black and white film left, so this girl her in amazing costume rests in my photo album in beautiful monochrome. I have a digital camera now.

Maybe next time I'm in London I'll actually go and eat at Lee Ho Fook's instead of just looking at the menu.

Doctor Who is Brilliant

Spoilers-

And so is Doctor Donna and Doctor Who 2-Journey's End was really good.

Oh there was a bit of worry that David Tennant would be leaving Doctor Who, but then, his future wife did recognize him, didn't she? So he must not have changed that much.

I thought Russel T Davis being appointed an OBE by the Queen last month was a bit over the top, but then, Doctor Who is a really great show. I liked that whole the gangs all here aspect of this season's last two episodes. Good to see everyone from the Russel T Davis universe fighting over who gets the chance to save the Universe this time.

About 7.4 million people tuned in for the season's last Doctor Who episode-and millions more will be watching as the days go by. Doctor Who is a great show and I have been very happy the new series. There is still some question as to what will happen with Doctor Who now that the great and powerful Russel T Davis is stepping down. It is possible for the Clone Doctor and Rose Tyler to cross that Sealed Forever Gap one more time if they need to.

Captain Jack had the oblivious desire to spend some time with both Doctors and Donna after it was revealed that they were all three The Doctor. Jack always has been an ambitious lad. There was that whole possibility of happily ever after, but those never really work out, do they?

While I'm on the topic of great season endings, I loved the end of Sarah Jane-Mr Smith, how could you? I really didn't see that coming. It was great.

Anyway-Doctor Who is fun, no matter who plays him or who writes him. Of course, you do wonder how many times one Time Lord can save the Universe. So tell me, if the Daleks can constantly come back, why can't the rest of The Time Lords? I know they were all prats anyway, but they were good for a laugh once in a while.

For more serious details about the show, visit Dalek Base and Of Code and Cats.

Long Live The Doctor! Oh and The Tardis, of course.

Wimbledon, London

In the 1870s, at the bottom of the hill on land between the railway line and Worple Road, the All-England Croquet Club had begun to hold its annual championships. Wimbledon matches that had no tennis, what a concept.

But the popularity of croquet was waning as the new sport of lawn tennis began to spread. After initially setting aside just one of its lawns for tennis, the club decided to hold its first Lawn Tennis Championship in July 1877. I wonder if there was a long wait for tickets to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships cost back then?

By 1922, the popularity of tennis had grown to the extent that the club's small ground could no longer cope with the numbers of spectators and the renamed All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club moved to new grounds close to Wimbledon Park.

Wimbledon historian Richard Milward recounts how King George V opened the new courts. "He gave three blows on a gong, the tarpaulins were removed, the first match started - and the rain came down..." The club's old grounds continue to be used as the sports ground for Wimbledon High School.

There's more to Wimbledon, London than lawn tennis, but for of the world-it only exists for a few days during the Wimbledon Championships. Then everyone wants to buy Wimbledon tickets, and make them cheap Wimbledon tickets, please. The news is that there will be yet another tennis match between the Williams Sister for the Wimbledon Championship. Well, I like them both and it doesn't really matter which one wins the Wimbledon Trophy. Seems they always win the Wimbledon Womens rounds.

I wasn't there at the right time to be looking for tickets for Wimbledon, and would not have been that interested in seeing a Wimbledon match anyway. But if I was there at the right time for the Wimbledon Finals, it would have been a bit tempting to try and get a couple of Wimbledon tickets. I couldn't have afforded to watch the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, but it would have been fun to say-Oy, do you know how much they want for Wimbledon tennis tickets? £91 doesn't sound all that bad, does it?

Well, Wimbledon, London would be a neat place to visit anyway.